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Just now, when I visited my own blog (after ignoring it for ages), I came across this alarming scene :

Upload server compromised?

When I tried to upload that image, I noticed that all files have been blocked. Which leads me to believe files.wordpress.com is the problem.

WordPress compromised?

Now there are two possibilities. Avast, my AV program is detecting all image etc… URLs from files.wordpress.com as being malicious or files.wordpress.com is serving actual malicious content. I hope it’s the former, but I haven’t actually downloaded the content of the files (precluding the afore mentioned infection risk) and don’t know yet that it’s an actual problem.

Update 6:00PM:

Looks like this may be a false positive. Avast has been notified and we’ll see if the warning disappears.

A very small sample of how incorrectly configured websites can invite trouble for visitors. I was prompted to write about this after hearing about a hacking incident of another friend’s website. The backend was compromised with no apparent user involvement which means another site on the same server possibly served as the backdoor or perhaps the server admins didn’t set the permissions correctly.

A little while ago, I was hosting a website which had been running an older version of WordPress. The site owners had long since let the installation lapse and, as always, there were vulnerabilities in the uploading privileges which were exploited. Since I had let the owners do whatever they pleased with their space and given them a lot of freedom, I didn’t pay as much attention as I should have. No other site on the server was compromised since they had sandboxed access.

Certain WordPress plugins require an inordinate amount of privileges, which is the one big reason to run a site with the minumum necessary plugins and to always keep them up to date. There is also no reason to keep stale files on the server or allow arbritary writing and uploading privileges when the bare minimum is acceptable.

The following is a file called 189715.php found on the /wp-uploads folder of this website and the same code was found in other areas with different number filenames. This was all jammed into one line, so I’ve expanded it here for clarity. Certain portions have been redacted :

Variable $z was basically a querystring intended to send all of the relevant server and environment data gathered in the previously defined variables.

String “cGhwc2VhcmNoLmNu” assigned to the $f variable turned out to be “phpsearch.cn”, this particular spammer’s domain. String “aHR0cDovL2FkczMu” turned out to be subdomain “http://ads3.&#8221; meaning this was a domain intended to inject spam and I’m sure the domain itself was expendable. String “aHR0cDovLzcxLg==” was pointing to subdomain “http://71.&#8221; while “aHR0cDovLzcu” was subdomain “http://7.&#8221;.

That include block was meant to try and download another PHP file remotely which it would then try to execute locally with the “eval()” function.

If the remote include failed, it would try curl to get the file and execute the file instead.

The [REDACTED ROOT] is of course where the WP installation directory on this server and in this case, the compromised plugin was OpenID.

The Auth/OpenID directory was full of junk that was surrepticiously uploaded as well. Also, the content of the style.css.php was another massive block of base64 encoded code (which I was unable to decode) and “mfsn” variable held the location of another file that was meant to be dynamically included at runtime. I was unable to find what the “gml” and “dgobh” functions were, but I can guess that it included everything from more injection code to spam to even drive-by downloads.

After running a scan on this server, this file and those like it turned out to be called the Small-AH trojan.

PHP Trojans would often employ base64 encoding and even splitting up the encoded string into multiple sections before decoding and running eval(). This would make it harder to spot and even harder to figure out what the code does exactly, especially in a big file, with just a cursory glance.

For those one or two people in the world who haven’t played this yet, your goal is to create an infectious disease from the three available types, Virus, Bacteria or Parasite, and mutate it in such a way to stay one step ahead of the humans and their countermeasures until you’ve wiped out every last one on Earth. It’s one of the most insidiously addictive games out there. Perhaps even more-so than the diseases it allows you to create. Either case, I was finally able to defeat it so I can finally go to bed!

First step would be to get every single region infected. Which wasn't easy with stubborn Madagascar!

When the shipyards are shutdown by the governments, you have to wonder what happens to all the stranded sailors at sea.

Once the world hospitals have started developing a vaccine, it's just a race against the clock to finish the job

Of course, a vaccine is of no use if all the hospitals are shut down due to the outbreak. This pretty much gives you as much time as you need.

And leave it to the Chinese, with it's super-large population to hold out to the end.

I’m sure most of you have been buried by the flood of (mis)information on all the media outlets. If you’ve been looking for a plow to cut through the bull, then please head over to this post by Shannon which clarifies the entire situation and breaks down the whole smelly pile for you point-by-point.

Honestly, from all the panic in the media, I could have sworn they were talking about some airborne variant of HIV for crying out loud.

And I do have a few explanations as to why it was so deadly in Mexico.

1. Either the virus actually originated in the U.S. and then spread to Mexico. So we have been exposed to an earlier, perhaps less virulent, mutation of this strain. Similar to how Cowpox, a related but less serious disease to Smallpox made those infected with the earlier strain to become immune or resistant to the later one. (Probably shouldn’t have used Smallpox as an example here, but I couldn’t think of a better relationship.)

2. Official response in Mexico has been dismal to non-existent for the first few days (the most critical part) of this outbreak. I recall many “pundits” expounding on the issue and called their response from “quite competent” to “ridiculous”. Thereby ruling these “pundits” as unreliable.

3.The healthcare system in Mexico isn’t as robust as we’ve been lead to believe. Shocking!

Worldwide, these annual epidemics result in about three to five million cases of severe illness, and about 250 000 to 500 000 deaths.

And why is it that young adults tend to be the most affected by this and the 1918 epidemic? Simple :
Young people tend to be more exposed. They are the most likely to socialize and gather in large crowds outdoors.

I.E. Parties, Social events etc… Where the spread of any contagion is facilitated.

And the deathtoll in 1918 was large for the same reason why millions of people die of disease even today. Lack of adequate healthcare. We can blame the times for the previous deaths. What’s our excuse now?

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A programmer and technology enthusiast destroys programming and technology. Welcome to the dichotomy of my existence...

Feel free to browse the experiments and pick up anything you may find useful. Or head over to the obligatory introduction. On a non-programming/technology note, you can also take a look at my cabin philosophy.

WARNING: I post a lot of code on this blog and some of it gets mangled by WordPress formatting. Please double-check for missing or extra quotes, backslashes, '<' and '>' transformed into '&lt;' and '&gt;' and other problems. All the code posted here has been verified to work before I post, except in cases where I explicitly mention that it's incomplete.